Answering Common Assumptions

As we all know by now, I love to have a good chuckle about the things that people say to me. There’s this thing going round the blogging world at the moment where bloggers answer assumptions people send in about them. I thought this week I’d do this with a difference and talk about the common assumptions people have about me and say whether they are true or not…

I wear children’s clothes

Alas, although I am small, I am not the width of a child. I mainly wear women’s clothes. However I do wear kids shoes and due to not growing much, have an array of shoes which are bulging out of my drawers.

I get everything paid for

I don’t really know where this comes from, but especially taxi drivers always say “you don’t pay anyway do you”. Which is kind of baffling as I don’t really like talking about money to strangers but I defo do not get everything paid for, if anything – everything is more expensive when you’re disabled.

I always need someone with me

This is a tricky one. Because I definitely could not live without having assistance. I have PAs that help me out, some tasks are impossible to do on my own and public places are just not accessible for me to independently go about my day. However, that being said, a lot of people are shocked if I’m ever on my own for a period of time. When everything is set up for me and I don’t have any barriers around me, of course, I can be on my own – and I actually really like my own company. I think people naturally think all disabled people have “care” 24/7 which is not the case for all disabled people. PA’s for me is having people there in order for me to be more independent.

All of my family are small like me

I’ve covered this one before, but if you’re new here – that’s certainly not the case. Everyone is either nearly or over 6 foot in my immediate family!

I don’t work

Whenever I tell people in passing that I have a job or mention work, some people cannot hide their shock. When I say I work at a University some look like they’re going to pass out. I once got called a “clever girl”. Go me. *obvs sarcasm* On a serious note though, it’s quite sad really – because whenever I mention this, I definitely get treated differently. With a little more respect. It’s frustrating really, it shouldn’t matter whether someone has a job or what job they have. People should be treated with basic respect. But that’s how it is at the moment.

I don’t drink

I love a drink, mainly cocktails. It’s a funny one this one because there’s definitely a stereotype that I’m some kind of ‘rebel’ for liking going out drinking. When I was a student at uni I tried to match all of my friends by drinking the amount they drank (and sometimes more). Which in hindsight, was so silly as I am much smaller than them. But I really wanted to prove I could handle it. Now, I realise it really doesn’t matter if I skip a round of drinks. No one cares and I have nothing to prove.

All buildings are accessible now

Short answer. No. I get “It’s good now isn’t it, as it’s the law for buildings to be accessible”. But this certainly isn’t the case. I feel like it’s a kind of tag line for people to use but don’t actually realise how many buildings aren’t accessible. If you go to your local highstreet and look at not only the entrances but inside the building, width of aisles, state of disabled toilets – you’d be surprised how many places are still inaccessible. A really good website to see where your local accessible places are is www.accessable.co.uk (not sponsored, it’s just a great website!).

My mum does my make up

Ha! Sorry mum, but I think we all know this is not true. Doing makeup is one of the one things I love to do independently. It’s my way of expressing my style and creativity. No offense mum, but I think we’d have to do a bit of work if you did my make up every day.

So there we have it, there are some assumptions answered! Ah, that’s better. I’d love to know if you had similar assumptions before this or have experienced someone assuming similar things about you? You can catch me on Facebook or Twitter on my contact page…